Synthesis and conclusions

From a cultural perspective, the Ca’ Nova site is a significant landmark in the Ligurian-Emilian Apennines for the definition of the BINO culture, which appears here (as in the sites of Drusco in the Ceno Valley and Travo in the Trebbia Valley), to be devoid of Terramare influences. It should be remembered that the Parma Apennines is a culturally nonhomogeneous territory, being divided between the Terramare and the BINO Cultures. As is well known, the former occupies the central part of the Po Valley and the Apennines of Reggio Emilia and Modena, the latter the vast territories from western Lombardy to Provence. A sort of border strip between these two cultural aspects seems to run from the upper valley of the Enza stream in the east to the first hills between the river Taro and the Stirone stream in the west. Ca’ Nova falls entirely within the Western Culture territory, although it was active as early as the middle phase of the Middle Bronze Age, a period in which the Terramare area of influence appears particularly extensive, as indicated by the spread of Terramare-style pottery finds in the Parma Apennines, much wider in this phase than later.